All Ur Data Belong to US

Actually employers have to do taxes year-round and the “sophisticated” nature of the IRS causes them to issue 4 or 6 digit PIN numbers.

Well the hackers know this so they buy some of your stolen data (from previous heists) on the Darknet¹&².

Now hackers have some of your PII (Personal Identifiable Information) and the knowledge that the IRS uses 4 digit pins. I bet you the encryption ability of Federal government is not up to par of the criminal hackers attacking.

Since we know all of this why are people still using the IRS electronic methods? It is a matter of time until your IRS tax return is filled out and cashed by the hackers in Nigeria-Ukraine-Russia-China. Sure you will get your return … by August. Once you spent 2 hours with an IRS employee telling them all the things the hackers may not know yet (hopefully).

there is a serious problem of personal identification in the USA. The government requires businesses to safeguard our information (HIPAA compliance and PCI compliance and SOX and etc. etc.)

I don’t remember a “compliance” for the government (which is why OPM hack happened) as well as all the other hacks we have not even heard about.

So what is my point? to contact your congressman and get the government to fix the problem?

Yes you can do that. You should do that. But what I am about is what we can do ourselves…

We have to know this new landscape – all our data is potentially in the hacker database server. So we have to act accordingly. Keep some data off the computer.

Don’t answer all questions about your favorite pets, high school sweetheart and more.

Create a few “Fake” answers only you will know.

Like what is your favorite movie? Tomato soup

Yes have you not heard of Tomato soup? it is a great movie lots of stars on it.

We have to create our own encryption since the banks and government are giving all the real stuff away.

Create a new playing field which only you have access to.

And remember you have to change your passwords – switch the password methodology – as we have to stay a step ahead of the criminals.